Meditation, Business, and Finding Success Through Uncertainty – An interview with Sally Hope

When it comes to farming and running a business, there are only a few certain things:

The sun will rise in the morning, the sun will set at night, and there will always be more to do.

There are far more uncertain things — the biggest one being the question, will this work?

• Will I be able to turn this dream into reality?  
• Will I be able to meet my customers needs — will I be able to get customers at all?
• Will this sustain me financially, or will I go into debt?
• What happens if this doesn’t work out?  What happens if I fail?

There are no certain answers to any of these questions.  But uncertainty is really uncomfortable. We don’t like to admit we don’t know.

Sally Hope thinks you should stop trying to be certain.  

Kundalini yoga and meditation teacher, Sally joined me for a conversation on meditation, creativity, and creating a life based on your dreams – not convention.  

We talk money, business, how your dreams aren’t any different than going to work each day, and how to move through uncertainty when you’re faced with more questions than answers.

Click play to listen, and check out the highlights of our conversation below.

Learn more about Sally and get a free guided Kundalini meditation on her website.*

Sally on what Kundalini yoga is:

Kundalini yoga is a style of yoga that’s extremely different from anything you’re probably used to.  It’s known as the yoga of awareness.  Every single thing you do in a Kundalini class or a Kundalini yoga meditation is geared to awaken you to your own truth. 

What that really means is you become aware of the things in your life that are actually happening, whether or not you’re trying to push them down underneath the surface, which is what we usually do when we go about the hustle and bustle of everyday life.  We park our things in little compartments in our minds, bodies, and psyches, and say I’ll deal with that later.

What Kundalini yoga does is it wakes us up. 

It helps to provide that experience of awareness for ourselves so we come face to face with our own self and our truth.  The benefit of doing that is your truth is there whether or not you’re looking at it.  It’s affecting you either way.

It can be affecting you in a really conscious way, where you’re like: okay, this the thing that I’m doing and this situation is not working for me, I can’t ignore it anymore. 

Whether or not you’re consciously looking at that, it’s affecting your life. 

What I love about Kundalini yoga is that it’s the ultimate seer and the truth teller.  You can’t hide from it.  It brings you up against your challenges and your insecurities and the patterns and habits you have in your life that need to change in order for you to move forward in the way you want to move forward.

The beautiful part is you get to see that so you can change and create the things in your life that you’ve been wanting to create.  It’s the great opener.

Kate: When I found Kundalini,  I went into the meditation you led on becoming magnetic and enchanting with a specific goal to make more money on the farm.  Which is not something you necessarily think — I’m going to meditate to bring more money into my life.

Often times the way we talk about money and meditation, they don’t seem to go hand in hand, but as a business owner, you do want to have a healthy and profitable business.  

That meditation helped me create better cash flow.  Which is not an intention I’d ever thought about bringing into meditation before.

Of course, it did so many other things — there are a lot of layers that I peeled back — but it’s through these specific meditations that I’ve improved my marketing, had more CSA sign-ups, and started my first online course.

Outside of meditation I can feel really scattered, thinking, what do I do next?  Now I have to do this, now I have to do that.  I feel like I’m running all over the place.

Sally: I don’t think that meditation and wanting money are mutually exclusive.  What meditation basically is is focus. 

In certain meditations like these Kundalini ones, it’s focusing on something specific.   Why not be spending your time, focus, and dedicated energy on the things you really want to have in your life?  Financial stability is that for everybody. 

I’ve done many prosperity abundance meditations, and they’re amazing.  There’s a reason we have them within the Kundalini practice because those things are not outside of the realm of a spiritual practice. 

Having abundance to live the life you want to live is spiritual.

Having abundance to live the life you want to live is spiritual.

Kate: When you’re starting a business, whether you’re starting a farm or a homestead, or anything, there’s so much uncertainty in life.  There’s no guarantee that it’s going to work. 

Even after your first year or 3 years or 5 years, there’s still uncertainty.  There are new challenges, and it’s really uncomfortable.

What do you tell others who are in the midst of a lot of questions and not so many answers?

Sally: My belief is that all of life is uncertain, but we don’t know that. 

We don’t think that.  We think that if only we do this one thing, then this other thing’s gonna happen.

I can be certain that I’m going to leave my house and go teach a yoga class, but any number of things can happen on the way. 

Even those little certainties — I’m certain I’m going to wake up and go to work in the morning.  All of those things that we think are certain actually aren’t.  But we put a lot more weight on these dream uncertainties and make them into a huge deal.  

If somebody’s going for their dream, they’re feeling really scared, they don’t know if it’s going to work out — the best thing I can tell people is to take the next certain step.

Usually, uncertainty is a big thing.  It feels like, Oh my God, if I do this farm, then what’s that going to look like for my family.  What if it doesn’t work out 5 years from now, and then 5 years from now where do I want to be?  

And then it goes into the spiral of really scary scenarios.  Because there is absolutely zero way for you to know for sure what’s going to happen, the spinning becomes the major conversation around it. 

That stops a lot of people because being uncertain is one of the most uncomfortable feelings that we as humans can even experience at all, so we try to avoid it.

If somebody’s going for their dream, they’re feeling really scared, they don’t know if it’s going to work out — the best thing I can tell people is to take the next certain step.

Instead of needing certainty that in 5 years it’s going to work out, I look at it now like, okay what is my next certain step?  Am I certain I want to entertain this idea?  Okay, yes.

Am I certain from there that this is so exciting for me that I want to take the next actual step?  Okay, yeah I’m certain about that.

Am I certain that I believe in healthy food and helping people live healthy lives?  Yes, I’m certain about that.

So you keep on breaking it down into the the next right step and the next certain thing you do know.  From there, the next part of it is a leap of faith, where there really is no certainty.

You mention, how do you deal with that part of it? 

Instead of needing there to be certainty, or needing to bust through the fear, I look at it like leaning into the fear and into the uncertainty and saying:

Okay, I don’t know if this is going to work out.  I need to try.  I know this is something that matters to me.  I know that I believe in the mission that I’m doing so much that I’m willing to give it a try.  And if it doesn’t work out I know that I will figure it out.

I don’t look at it like, how do we get rid of uncertainty. 

I look at it like, how do we move through what we’re going through given that we feel uncertain.  The way I know how to do that is to take the next certain step.

Take the next move that feels like the right one. 

Go back to your intention, in the business world we call this the why — the thing behind what you’re creating.  Why do you want to create it?  What’s important to you?  What’s important to the world?

When you shine the flashlight on these creations you want to create on the planet, and you take the flashlight away from your own uncertainty, then it becomes more clear. 

Everybody wants to change something or contribute in a meaningful way to life.  When you focus on that part of it, then the uncertainty is like, well yeah it’s uncertain but this thing is so important and I’m gonna do it.

Any person who’s ever started a revolution, any person who’s ever innovated or come up with something new — The lightbulb.  The internet.  —

Anything we have now that we use on a daily basis was started by somebody who was terrified that they couldn’t do it.

Anything we have now that we use on a daily basis was started by somebody who was terrified that they couldn’t do it.

Sally shares more insights on business, meditation, and creativity in the full interview.

Listen to the full interview by clicking play above, or read the full transcript here.

Sally and I would love to know: what was your biggest take-away from this interview?

Let us know in the comments below.

If you’re curious about Kundalini and want to know more, check out Sally’s website and get her free Beaming & Creating Meditation.

I’ll be sending out more information soon, so be sure to sign up for The Good Heart Life weekly letter, where I share more on organic growing from soil to soul that I don’t post anywhere else.

*I’m an affiliate for Sally’s meditation programs. I’m also a paying student in her programs, and I’ll only ever share programs with you that I believe in.